4 Ways to Develop Secondary Students’ Love of Literature with Challenging Texts

Well, there is a way to help secondary students develop a love of literature- and that’s by teaching them perplexing texts from the onset.
In this article, you’re going to learn how to develop secondary students’ love of literature with challenging texts. So if you’re a literature teacher or student, you’ll find help here.
So without much ado, let’s get started.
1.Explain Things to Them
One of the problems KS3 students struggle with is that they don’t know how to form interpretations.
As a literature teacher, you will most likely not only have formed your interpretations of texts, but you will also have read and understood various alternative ideas from your studies.
For that reason, it would be good to teach your students interpretations than to expect them to interpret challenging texts on their own.
For instance, you may refer to the way Dickens describes the weather to foreshadow Magwitch’s character in the novel Great Expectations.
Well, of course, there is still a belief that teaching interpretations is limiting students’ responses or giving them ideas but it’s important to perceive it as helping them engage critically with challenging texts.
You just need to make sure you support your interpretation with evidence so that you can give room to students to further discover more evidence. This will help them understand more complex ideas.
2.Teach Them First
Of course, you can’t pop into a class, ask questions out of the blues, and expect to get concrete answers.
What this means is that if you know that you’re going to engage students in an engaging text, you need to teach them first so that even when you ask questions, they can flashback and answer you properly.
Spend time teaching them about the text and become familiar with it and this will make it easy for them to interpret things when you ask them.
For instance, when it comes to the novel “Great Expectations” what can your students learn before and during the study to help them get the concept of the novel?
Can they list the effects of the Industrial Revolution on social class? Do they know the conditions for prisoners in prison hulk?
Take time to teach students what you think you’re going to explore in the next lesson to help them understand well.
This will not only make them develop a love of the challenging text but will also make them get familiar with the concept which could help them later during their study.
3.Read the Texts to Them
Take the lead. Be the voice. Tell them stories and don’t limit anyone from telling their stories.
To make students follow the thread of a narrative, you need to read it to them instead of asking a few students to read. Some will not have the confidence and fluency and this could affect the confidence of the others.
When you read the texts yourself, you can always explain something you know they can’t understand it as you read.
4.Teach Them the Vocabulary
Of course, we cannot KS3 students from learning literature because of the complex vocabulary it comes with.
The best thing to do is to teach them the vocabulary.
Yes. You need to write words and their meanings and place them in visible places around your class. You can also spend a few minutes of each lesson explaining some complex terms that students are going to encounter during text study.
So, there you have it. four ways to make students love literature with challenging texts.